Posted on 05/06/2013 5:37:42 PM PDT by rhema
A bad case of Tom Ricketts in Wrigley Field, Chicago.
Major League sports team owners we will always have with us. They are different from the rest of us.
Wake a normal person at three in the morning with a loud noise and he’ll yell, “Holy ****! What was that!?” Wake a major league team owner (any sport) at the same time with the same noise and he’ll explain, “We need a new ball-yard. And if you don’t buy us one with public money we’ll move the team to Keokuk.”
When The Mob does this it’s called extortion. When major league team owners do it, the local chamber of commerce and pliable politicians call it economic development. In either case it’s a bad deal for the marks. If major league franchises were the economic drivers their owners claim them to be, and that gullible or self-interested parties claim to believe them to be, the richest neighborhood in America would be the South Bronx, where the New York Yankees play. Have you been there lately?
Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts is running a variation of this hustle just now, and creating some unintentional comedy along the way. At first he went for taxpayer gold like other team owners. But flat broke Illinois and Chicago have told Ricketts that there’s no public money for the half billion dollars in “improvements” he says he wants to make to Wrigley Field, a baseball shrine most savvy baseball fans would be shocked to learn needs improving.
Of course the improvements Ricketts wants, including lots more signage, are things he believes would increase his revenue rather than anything that would improve the game-watching experience in Wrigley. Au the contraire, the item atop Rickett’s wish list, a 6,000-square-foot jumbotron that would loom over Wrigley’s left field bleachers,
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
The problem is that Chicago has two major league teams and something will have to give.
Lifelong Cub fan, lots and lots of scar tissue. They better not move from Wrigley, or I will toss in the towel.
Tiger Fan here but I know the feeling.
But it actually is a sound plan to build a high-tech wonder and wait for the enhanced revenue to purchase high-quality players. As a loyal Seattle fan I can state that that policy has given us every World Series the Mariners have ever won. Which would be one fewer than the Cubs. (Sob!)
Wrigley is a dump. It’s falling apart. It should be torn down and replaced with office buildings.
And Mr. Ricketts might want to try something crazy, like fielding a ball club that can actually win more than 50% of their games.
Mrs L and I love going to the minor league games here locally. A lawn seat is $6.00. Parking is $5.00, and you arent talking your life in your hands walking 20 blocks through the ghetto to get there. A cold beer is $4.00 and a nice charcoal grilled 1/2 pound burger is $4.50.
The team we patronize is the most profitable one in the minor leagues. There is a lesson for Mr. Ricketts in there somewhere.
The White Sox...
And whoever plays the Cubs.
(unfortunately it hasn't been an overly good year for cheering.) Both are in a race for the cellar.
Wrigley might seem like a dump to you, but it isn't to me.
Too many memories.
You could be an Astros fan.
8-24 Ouch.
US Sucular is the same way. Its an arm pit neighborhood.
Meanwhile, Wrigleyville is Okay. (Just don't bend over if you're a guy)
Then by all means get out your checkbook, hold a bake sale, sell stock in a losing franchise, do whatever to raise the money to refurbish that hole in the north side.
But leave Illinois taxpayers alone. There is not one single good reason for some poor working stiff in Peotome to pay to subsidize your memories.
8-24 Ouch.
White Sox aren't much better at 13-17
Cubs are at 11-20 (Go Astros, Blue Jays, Angels and Marlins)
Go Blackhawks.
. . .it actually is a sound plan to build a high-tech wonder and wait for the enhanced revenue to purchase high-quality players. As a loyal Seattle fan I can state that that policy has given us every World Series the Mariners have ever won. Which would be one fewer than the Cubs. (Sob!)I must have missed the World Series the Mariners actually did win.
(*FYI---This is from early American history, of course, but the Cubs actually have won two World Series. Back-to-back, even. That, of course, was during the Roosevelt Administration----Theodore's, that is . . .)
I’ve about had it with taxpayer extortion by major league owners to the point where I can’t even watch sports anymore. Every owner in the NFL says “we’re going to move to LA!!”, the grifters in the commissioners’ offices (Goodell, Stern, Selig, Bettman) exacerbate the problem, all for the benefit of overgrown drunks in face paint and corporate schmoozing in luxury boxes.
Of course the improvements Ricketts wants, including lots more signage, are things he believes would increase his revenue rather than anything that would improve the game-watching experience in Wrigley.A baseball team that can score more runs than the other guys on a regular basis would do far more to improve the game-watching experience at the Confines than any signage or other cosmetics . . .
(This is the 115th year of their rebuilding effort the Cubs are playing this season, by the way . . .)
You could be an Astros fan.Oh, yes, the Astros. Weren't they the team named later to complete the trade that made a National League team out of the Milwaukee Brewers?8-24 Ouch.
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